{"id":639,"date":"2010-08-30T08:55:19","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T13:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/?p=639"},"modified":"2010-08-31T09:03:39","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T14:03:39","slug":"people-share-nice-and-mean-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/people-share-nice-and-mean-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"People Share Nice and Mean Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Saturday, I did one of my first authorly Events, the Big Brothers Big Sisters Friendship Celebration. \u00a0I have been a Big Sister for over 4 years now, and it\u2019s been a fantastic element in my life.\u00a0 I love being able to help someone directly, without any interface, and of course I love my little sister, who has grown from 8 to almost 12 in the time that I\u2019ve known her (and she\u2019s retained her sweetness\u2014amazing!)\u00a0 Naturally, I was thrilled to have a\u00a0Nice and Mean <\/em>Event <\/em>for an organization I care so much about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An Event is a somewhat different beast than a reading or school visit.\u00a0 At an Event, you have a table representing Your Book and You, and you are the sole staff member (well, unless you are a bigger type than myself.)\u00a0 You might sell books, and you might not.\u00a0 Mostly, you are there to drum up enthusiasm for Your Book and You and to Meet People. \u00a0\u00a0I have no problem with this. I like meeting people, especially kids and teachers, and this gives me a chance to interact.\u00a0 But to do this, I have decided, I need a Gimmick, and my Gimmick is Nice and Mean Memories.\u00a0 (Apparently my Gimmick for Talking About This is Capital Letters, but anyway.)<\/p>\n

In addition to erecting my little area with books, bookmarks, and information on how to bring me into your school, I created a little clothesline to which people could affix their Nice or Mean Memories.\u00a0 I had some left over from various bookstore appearances, but those are going to get retired, because I got so many great new ones from the Little Brothers and Sisters and their Bigs and parents, too!\u00a0 I told them I\u2019d put their words on the internet and make them famous by Monday night, so here I am, making good on my promise.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting with the mean memories so you can end on a sweet note:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mean Memories<\/em><\/p>\n

When my mama had got lock up my godmother cut my hair when I was 13.<\/p>\n

5th<\/sup> Grade\u2014I was proud of my new gauchos\u2026until I saw the \u201cpopular\u201d girls giggling about them.<\/p>\n

My mom had a dozen roses stolen from her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nice Memories<\/em><\/p>\n

I the best student and the nicest.\u00a0 My name is Demetrius.<\/p>\n

My favorite nice memory is when my 10-year-old brother wrote me a letter for my 18th<\/sup> birthday telling me how much I mean to him!\u00a0 I love you, little brother!<\/p>\n

A friend came to visit me & gave me a hug after a hard day at the doctor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

When my mom tooke me and my mom\u2019s friend and daughter to Six Flags!!<\/p>\n

Me and all my family went to the zoo.<\/p>\n

My best friend, John Mark, getting the ENTIRE cafeteria to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me on my 16th<\/sup> birthday!<\/p>\n

All the time that me and my big sis cook together.<\/p>\n

Joe is my friend at church and he is nice to me.<\/p>\n

I did chors to help mi mom. \u00a0(Editor’s note: I feel compelled to remark that that was written by a 5-year-old on his own!)<\/p>\n

———————————————————————————————–<\/p>\n

I was surprised that so many more people wrote Nice memories than Mean ones.\u00a0 I personally might have liked to vent (maybe this is why I am a writer?), but I guess they wanted to think about something happy on a Saturday morning\u2014and who can blame them?<\/p>\n

Mostly, though, I just felt good reading and re-typing these.\u00a0 It\u2019s such a good reminder, too, that even something as simple as taking your family to the zoo can count as a nice memory.\u00a0 It\u2019s possibly indulgent and self-referential to be inspired by things inspired by your book, but I did feel inspired, and honored, at the memories people shared.<\/p>\n

If you have any Nice or Mean memories to share, feel free to add.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, I did one of my first authorly Events, the Big Brothers Big Sisters Friendship Celebration. \u00a0I have been a Big Sister for over 4 years now, and it\u2019s been a fantastic element in my life.\u00a0 I love being able to help someone directly, without any interface, and of course I love my little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,43],"tags":[97,96],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appearances","category-on-the-scene-with-nice-and-mean","tag-big-brothers-big-sisters","tag-nice-and-mean-memories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}